On Leadership and Spirituality

August 03, 2012

During an election year, the long process of selecting our national political leaders inevitably puts leadership at the center of civic deliberations. What is leadership? Although many people might say they cannot define it but they "know it when they see it," leadership is a significant topic of study: books are written, seminars offered on the topic, and a journal and even some university graduate programs are today devoted to leadership studies.

Our ideas about leadership have been shaped by masculine images and ideas, and we are accustomed to thinking about leadership as it relates to ranking and holding power to make decisions. Male-dominated professions like the military and corporations provide structures with leadership at the top.

We sometimes think about leadership as the charismatic hero who leads by inspiring others with force of personality. Charismatic leaders often are self-centered and or narcissistic, and we know heroes can disappoint. We've seen the dark side of heroic leadership recently in the wake of a tragic university sexual abuse scandal.

Leadership is critical to organizational life. Yet it includes a spiritual dimension that is sometimes overlooked. The organizations of which we are a part bring us into contact with the larger world, and that simple fact has a direct bearing on spirituality.

For spirituality, although often defined as focus on the inner life, directs us inward only so that we might turn outward toward others. Leadership shaped by spiritual concerns negotiates and interacts with others, grounding leadership responsibility in the most important qualification for leadership: empathy.

Spiritually aware and empathetic leaders take care to create a hospitable place for those with whom they work. The leader who creates that hospitable place will be concerned about ethics, about justice and fairness in the organization, as well as about those things that tear at morale.

A friend once told me of a middle-management leader in an organization who overheard some backbiting about one of the colleagues and pulled the person aside to say, "We don't do that here." A leader attuned to spiritual dynamics will expect a best effort, and idle complaining and gossip ought to be no one's idea of a best effort. Work places where such things are common are not healthy — or spiritually mature — environments.

Scholars who have examined the heath-care setting have identified some characteristics of the leader who is spiritually attuned. Among the characteristics of such a leader are these: shows a willingness to challenge established processes with constructive alternatives; inspires trust, not so much in the leader but in the project, the mission, the directive; offers a vision and communicates it with clarity and enthusiasm; is ready to share and enable others to act; includes and does not exclude; not only articulates but also models expectations; respects others and encourages the heart, offering correction and big picture "mission reminders" without ever demeaning others.

For all the people who hated Abraham Lincoln, it is said he himself only hated one person, his secretary of treasury, whom he kept close by; and when he could not stand him close by any more appointed him Chief Justice of the Supreme Court.

There's a model for seeing what is best in the context of the larger picture, and how one separates negative feelings, which are often projections of one's own shortcomings and insecurities, from clear judgment about talent and ability.

Leaders who create a hospitable, accepting and inclusive environment, who uphold the virtues of justice, fortitude and prudence, thereby modeling the behavior they want to see in others, wind up creating better organizations.

Researchers have found that such ways of acting yield practical benefits. Not only does such a "spiritualized" idea of leadership lead to organizations that are better able to advance their mission and strengthen their objectives, but such leadership also creates an environment that enhances the prospect of personal fulfillment.

Our faith communities are places where such ideas of leadership should be fostered and modeled for the rest of society. For in these communities, something bigger than the individual ego is honored, even as the individual is highly valued; and empathy, even compassion, is a core value to take from the community into the world of work and daily living.

Those shaped by such values will be decisive but also risk-takers; they will act with integrity and be honest and open with others; they will be accessible and seek to communicate in inclusive ways; and they will encourage the continued development of others.

Our religious traditions understand the values that make the world work at its best. Those traditions have, over the centuries, given us countless examples of people shaped through their faith to become leaders attuned to spirit whatever walk of life and occupation they finally adopted. Abraham, Moses, David, Jesus, Mohammad, Gautama Buddha were all leaders attuned to the requirements of spiritual leadership. What they set loose in the world still awaits our attention — if not in shared creed or statement of faith, then in the actions that finally require us to attune ourselves to the care and empathy for others that is the sign of hope and caring community.

Lloyd Steffen is university chaplain and professor of religion studies at Lehigh University in Bethlehem; 610-758-3877